Theater Director Finds U.s. `Toy' Plays A Much Bigger Role In Chile

BACKSTAGE

January 06, 1990|by SUSAN CHASE

Bill George has a gift for metaphor: "Theater in the United States is a toy on the shelf," he says. "It's one among many -- those that are broken, those that need batteries -- from which one selects when one feels like playing."

The founder and artistic director of Bethlehem's Touchstone Theatre, George just returned from Santiago, Chile. There, he says, "Theater is a more central activity. Actors are very respected; they're a vital part of the intelligentsia, along with poets."

George's trip was funded by International Theatre Institute, which sends Americans around the world to build relationships with other professionals. In Santiago, George sampled the entire spectrum of Chilean theater. "I saw five plays, had interviews with three other companies, attended two schools, went to a movie and saw the Rolling Stones on TV," he says.

Most important, George laid the foundation for bringing two prominent Chilean actors to Bethlehem for performances. "Hector Nogare, star of Chilean TV and stage, does a one-man show called `Contrabass,' " George explains. "And Edgardo Raina does a two-person piece about Marx and Freud called `The Secret Obscenity of Everyday Life.' "

George discovered a link between patterns of speech and patterns of movement during his journey. The Spanish language, he explains, is mellifluous -- the words run together. (George illustrates this by stringing together a gibberish sentence.)

Similarly, he found that Spanish-speaking actors used smooth, flowing movements. While observing classes at the Teatro Imagen school, George was asked to give pointers to the students. "I mostly worked on adding dynamics," he says, "giving their work more impulse."

George does not speak Spanish, but he is a mime by training. One envisions him in front of the classroom, acting out his suggestions, a la charades. But in fact he used a more traditional approach to the language barrier. "I just spoke English," he shrugs, "REAL LOUD."

THE LANGUAGE OF COMEDY

Playwright Russell Davis was inspired by a colloquial use of English to write his play "The Last Good Moment of Lily Baker." "My father worked for a corporation while he was alive," Davis explains. "I found corporate language eloquent and lyrical -- it's so bland, it doesn't really allow for bad news."

In "The Last Good Moment of Lily Baker," a dark comedy which opens Wednesday at People's Light and Theatre Company in Malvern, Chester County, four old friends reunite 15 years after high school. "The world has expanded," Davis says, "but they have no language to address that. Three of them try, one refuses."

Davis, who has five plays to his credit, has supported himself on occasion by juggling. "I'm a serious juggler," he says. "I practice 20 hours a week. I also do the unicycle and whenever there's a wire around I walk on it."

Davis is currently putting these skills into a new play, "The Wild Goose Circus," a musical about "a dysfunctional circus."